Released 26 September 2005 Length 44:32 Piece by Piece
(2005) Pictures
(2007) Release date 26 September 2005 Genres Blues, Jazz, Pop music | Recorded 2004-05 Label Dramatico Artist Katie Melua Producer Mike Batt | |
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Awards Echo Award for Best International Rock/Pop Female Artist Similar Katie Melua albums, Pop music albums | ||
Piece by Piece is the second studio album by British-Georgian jazz and blues singer Katie Melua. It was released on 26 September 2005 by Dramatico Records. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at #1 with 120,459 copies sold in its first week.
Contents
Its first single, "Nine Million Bicycles", became Melua's first top five hit in the UK and caused controversy when science writer Simon Singh said the lyrics "demonstrates a deep ignorance of cosmology and no understanding of the scientific method". After an amusing and good-natured debate in the Press Melua eventually recorded Singh's version, which both agreed was scientifically accurate and musically pathetic.
The second single was a double A-side comprising "I Cried for You" and a cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". The former song was written after Melua met the writer of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and is about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, while the latter was recorded for the soundtrack to the film Just Like Heaven. The single peaked outside the UK top twenty, and the album's third single, "Spider's Web" (which Melua wrote when she was eighteen, during the Iraq war) did not reach the top forty.
Melua wrote the title song "Piece By Piece" after she broke up with her boyfriend Luke Pritchard, and "Half Way up the Hindu Kush" was written by Katie and Mike Batt as a joke playing on the innuendo implicit in the title phrase, which cropped up in a conversation about scarves on a train journey. Katie wrote the chorus and Mike the verses. Alongside covers of "Blues in the Night" and Canned Heat's "On the Road Again", the album includes "Thankyou, Stars", which was previously released as a B-side on Melua's debut single "The Closest Thing To Crazy" in 2003.
The album was re-released in 2006, as Piece by Piece: Special Bonus Edition, with three additional tracks and a bonus DVD with concert Moment by Moment and promo videos.
Katie melua piece by piece
Track listing
- "Shy Boy" (Mike Batt) – 3:22
- "Nine Million Bicycles" (Mike Batt) – 3:15
- "Piece by Piece" (Katie Melua) – 3:24
- "Halfway Up the Hindu Kush" (Katie Melua, Mike Batt) – 3:06
- "Blues in the Night" (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer) – 4:12
- "Spider's Web" (Katie Melua) – 3:58
- "Blue Shoes" (Mike Batt) – 4:39
- "On The Road Again" (Floyd Jones, Alan Wilson) – 4:38
- "Thankyou, Stars" (Mike Batt) – 3:39
- "Just Like Heaven" (Robert Smith, Porl Thompson, Simon Gallup, Lol Tolhurst, Boris Williams) – 3:35
- "I Cried For You" (Katie Melua) – 3:38
- "I Do Believe in Love" (Katie Melua) – 3:00
- "It's Only Pain" (Mike Batt) (Special Bonus Edition track)
- "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Acoustic version) (Lennon–McCartney) (Special Bonus Edition track)
- "Sometimes When I'm Dreaming" (Mike Batt) (Special Bonus Edition track)
Variants
A special edition for Spanish department store El Corte Inglés had additional tracks - Spanish language versions of "Closest Thing to Crazy" ("Esa Clase de Locura") and "Faraway Voice" (aka "Otra vez tu").
The American release had two extra tracks (but not the Special Bonus edition tracks), "Jack's Room" and "Market Day in Guernica".
Personnel
Production
Songs
1Shy Boy3:29
29 Million Bicycles3:15
3Piece by Piece3:24